"I have the box right here," Madeliene whispered into Mariana's ear, apparently trying to look like she was fixing up the hairdo of her captain.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Captain Mariana hissed. "We'll get noticed in no time!"
She was right. Some pirates came by and decided that it was a lot better to separate the prisoners from each other. Although this was sad, Madeliene had succeeded in one thing, and that was igniting hope into Mariana's heart, an organ and a symbol that was now engulfed in darkness almost all the time.
Mariana had estimated the timing of the departure from Aja Vana so accurately that even she was a bit scared of her prophetic talents. When she learned that Daniel was planning to have her sleep in his cabin, she didn't know whether she was to be excited, scared, or both.
She received no news from Madeliene for a while. Had it not been for the sheer intensity of being locked in Daniel's cabin and not being able to tell when he would come in and say a couple of words to her, she would have been captured by sorrow and fear, and not just this intense mixture of hatred and desire.
She started to notice a pattern in Daniel's comings and goings, though. A loud bang, maybe something in the masts moving, and then someone barked orders, with the pirate king also saying something quite loudly, then a few moments of silence - and the she-privateer could count on Daniel entering his cabin, almost without exception.
Mariana thought about starting to subtly manipulate Daniel into talking to her with kindness again. This time, she would not bother her with anything like talking about starting or quitting anything. She only had to be a bit coy, a bit shy, and she had to do it with slyness like that demonic or angelic ship cat that was surely doing well right now, without a care for the ways of pirates and privateers.
Mariana sighed. She would have wanted someone to talk to, but the pirate king was away, doing pirate things.
She examined the cabin.
Unlike most regular sailors, the captain normally had a proper bed, and this was the case with Daniel. Something about it was a bit off, though.
Mariana realized that the bunk was too narrow for two people.
A small victory, perhaps? She had been the only woman to occupy such a huge space in his life that he had chosen to give her a space in his cabin. Of course, it could be so that he made the women he brought here sleep on the floor, but that would have been too ridiculous, even when talking about Daniel Brandon.
Then there were the statues.
Mariana had not even noticed them at first, but now it seemed obvious to her that they were of some occultic origin. With a vaguely Karshaan or maybe Raelian flair, their style was still hard to place in any recent artistic traditions. Besides, the crystals that decorated the obscenely bulbous shapes were so expensive that a regular wisewoman would not have endorsed anything like that.
Mariana swallowed.
So, he had delved deeper and deeper into the dark magic wonderland. It wasn't like she had abstained from such things, she just felt an incredible sense of unease while sitting in the middle of these obscure statues, amulets and foreign books. He was an explorer by nature, a man who had to discover and conquer new things constantly. There was nothing she could do to stop him that would not have been taming him, killing that joy and curiosity, and perhaps that was the reason for them being so close, yet so far apart from each other.
She knew better than to try to tame him completely. He had to be a wild pirate king and she only loved wild men, real men, not soggy excuses whose main excitement came from betting in a horse race with a pre-arranged winner.
She stood up for a change. The sitting was getting hard to bear, even physically so, and she felt something fluttering within her chest again, or rather, a firefly.
It drove a beam of golden light right through her murky state of mind.
She walked around a bit, thrilled to be surrounded by things that belonged to him.
She touched her chest, tapping her fingers on the bandage, noticing that this did not hurt as much anymore.
He had so many books…
A wild wave of longing rushed over her, even though it had just been five minutes since his latest departure. She wanted him, his lips on hers, she wanted to ride into the sunset with him or steal a thousand ships and start a war, she wanted to engage in every possible act of mischief and violence with Daniel Brandon, the reckless pirate king.
It was not her fault that love and other fiery, passionate emotions often went to bed together, still quarreling, and found their limbs wrapped in a fierce embrace when it was time to be coherent and pick a side again.
Pick a side! Why did she have to pick a side? This was ridiculous, no one else had to act according to any internal logic whatsoever, why did she have to force her emotions into a neat little box and declare her intentions like some sort of a business plan? Couldn't she just…wing it? Improvise?
She walked up to the shelf and picked up a book.
So, maybe she had provoked herself into doing something stupid, but there hadn't been a loud bang coming from the deck and she had plenty of time.
Besides, it was a good opportunity to be reckless, like she had been, like they had been.
She read the name of the book.
"Hytocydric…Smillions?"
She laughed a little. The chuckle almost died in her throat when she realized that the name itself could be a spell, but there wasn't much she could do about it anymore.
Except…if she was even a little bit sensible, it would have been a bright idea to put Hytocydric Smillions back into the shelf and pretend it did not exist.